


Welcome to the Machine

by alchemise



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Bureaucracy, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/pseuds/alchemise
Summary: Sometimes working for the man could be really really boring.
Relationships: Nate Heywood & Ava Sharpe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Welcome to the Machine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greerwatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/gifts).



> Takes place during season 4.

Ava figured her day could not possibly get any worse. Of course, as soon as that thought popped into her head, it was followed immediately with the fear that she'd just jinxed herself. She tried to reassure herself that it wouldn't lead to inevitable karmic damnation since she didn't say it out loud.

She'd spent literally four hours doing nothing but paperwork and felt like she was starting to lose her mind. Prior to that, she'd been on a top secret conference call along with a few other agency directors, concerning strategies for appropriations funding. It was important, of course, but there were moments when the sheer boredom made her wonder if her fellow clones in 2213 were leading more exciting lives.

She knew she was being an ass for complaining about it all, though, even if just to herself. It wasn't like she was in the field, getting chased by terrifying magical creatures intent on eating her alive or worse. It was just paperwork and government blowhards who she'd become an expert in convincing to see things her way.

Then she looked down again at Form G59-4 in front of her and wished more than anything that a terrifying magical creature intent on eating her alive or worse would burst through the door.

Ava sighed. _No such luck_.

For nowhere near the first time, she wished she was with Sara, on the Waverider. Ava was relatively confident that her girlfriend never bothered with paperwork. More than relatively confident, really, because Ava was the one who made sure all the Legends tax forms were in order. The life of a Legend looked so tempting from where Ava was sitting, but _someone_ had to keep the office running. She got back to work, for another hour until her computer notified her that she had a meeting. She'd completely forgotten that she was supposed to be conducting final interviews for potential new time agents today.

As the interviewee started giving her spiel—her prior experience was fairly impressive, and Ava couldn't deny her enthusiasm for the position—Ava studied the woman's face. There was something about her, something eerily, and kind of disturbingly, familiar. Ava glanced down at the file again and pain attention to the woman's name, then looked up sharply. "Will you excuse me for just a moment?"

She didn't wait for the woman's answer before quickly exiting her office (although she could hear an eager "Yes, ma'am!" behind her).

Ava found Gary lurking in the hallway and didn't hesitate before confronting him. "Eileen Green?? Gary, you can't just get your sister a job at our top secret government agency!"

"Okay, I see that you're mad, boss, but first, she's my cousin, and second, she would make such a good time agent!"

Ava couldn't take it anymore. She just wanted to get away from all of it: the routine and the bullshit and the having to keep everything running all the time. She turned away from Gary without a response and strode off with frantic determination. She knew just where to go.

She burst as nonchalantly as she could into Nate's office. Nobody ever seemed to bother Nate, and they hopefully wouldn't think to look for her there, as Ava was known not to fraternize with other Time Bureau employees (well, except for one, but Sara could only barely be said to work for the Time Bureau anyway—it's not like she ever read her annual performance review or updated her W-4 or filed requests for vacation time; she just lived her life as she wanted to, without any regard for the system operating behind her).

Ava stared at Nate, trying to figure out what to say. She'd been half-hoping he wouldn't be there. He noticed her right away, though, and immediately—and painfully obviously—tried to look like he'd been working, instead of whatever it was he'd been doing with a pack of cards, a cell phone, and what looked like a box of colored pencils.

"Um, Ava, hi! This is sudden, but um, please come in."

"Ugh, Nate, it's not like I'm your boss." Ava stepped over to his couch and collapsed onto it, noting the puzzled look on his face. "Okay, yes I am, but it just sucks sometimes. Being the boss sucks." She grabbed a decorative pillow, put it over her face, and screamed into it.

She felt Nate's hand on her shoulder. She had to admit he was very quick to respond to someone in need. "Um, what's wrong, Ava?"

"Bureaucracy, working for the government, Gary's stupid family, all of the above." Ava thought she might be close to screaming again, so forced herself to stop listing her torments.

Nate, of course, zeroed right in one item in the list. "Gary's stupid family? I mean, I'm having trouble imagining other people out there related to Gary, but what did his family do?"

Ava glared at him. "Be perfectly qualified for the job!" Ava realized how ridiculous she sounded. "Everything I saw in her file indicates that she's the ideal candidate. But I can't hire her without it looking like nepotism."

Nate obviously figured out what was going on there and scrunched his face in response. "Well, you know, that is something I'm kind of familiar with."

Ava sighed, now feeling guilty for inadvertently making it sound like she was accusing him. "I didn't even know Hank was your father when the Legends started working for the Time Bureau."

"Yeah, I know that and you know that, but pretty much everyone else around here assumes I only got the job because of Hank. I'm just saying, I can easily be your nepotism distraction. I'll just start randomly namedropping my dad. Hire this woman if she's really the best."

Ava thought about it. It wasn't a terrible plan, and Eileen Green did look like the best qualified of the applicants Ava had quickly scanned through. "Thanks, Nate. I guess that's one thing off the to do list. The painfully long to do list." Ava snorted a bit of a hysterical laugh, which Nate responded to with a frighteningly mischievous look.

"You look like you could use a break."

"Yes?" Ava warily admitted.

"I've got just the thing. Let me borrow your time courier."

Ava handed it over with more than a little trepidation. Although, if she was being honest, whatever nonsense Nate had planned had to be better than returning to the mountain of paperwork she'd left on her desk and the countless emails she hadn't even gotten to yet. She was pretty sure she also had a meeting with Time Bureau department managers scheduled for later that afternoon concerning such exciting things as requests for vacation time and how better to streamline the ordering of office supplies.

Nate dialed in a destination with confidence, and, without hesitation, Ava joined him in going through the portal. Surely even the director of the Time Bureau deserved a bit of a break.

"What is this place?" Ava was thrown by how nondescript the building looked. She'd assumed Nate was taking her somewhere and when that was famous, someplace his inner historian could geek out about. But this was just…

"A bar." Nate looked at the building with a pleased smile.

"Yeah, I can see that. By why here, in whatever city we're in?"

"Chicago. It's a bar—well, a speakeasy, actually—in 1920's Chicago, a few years before Capone takes over everything. That's it. Just an ordinary local bar in a bustling Midwestern city." Nate clearly saw that Ava was still puzzled. "I love this place. History isn't about the huge moments, the events that change the course of humanity. It's about places like this, where people get together and just get to be themselves. I heard about this place when we saved Eliot Ness and had to check it out. Sometimes, I just take the jumpship and come here to have a drink, get to know what life was like a century ago."

That last bit broke through the nostalgia that even Ava could feel in Nate's words. "You just take the jumpship and time travel to go to a bar? An illegal bar, at that? Without authorization?"

"Um, no, of course not. I'm sure Sara knows and probably approves." Nate shrugged, obviously unconcerned, and grabbed her arm. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink."

Minutes later, Ava sipped at her drink dejectedly. The charm of the 1920s had already worn off, and she'd fallen back into the funk she'd been in all day. "I just don't know if I'm really cut out to be in charge. My fellow clones, they were civil servants and soldiers. They kept the world humming along, but none of them were leaders, making actual meaningful decisions. Maybe implementing policies from above and signing off on human resources requests is what I'm really meant for."

"Ava."

She looked up at his tone. He was staring at her with faint disappointment. _That just figured_ , she thought gloomily.

Then he smiled. "You're being ridiculous. You took over the Time Bureau after everyone else failed it. You've kept it running through crisis after crisis. You even manage to deal with people like my father holding all the power, who can't possibly understand how important what we do is, and yet you make sure we have everything we need to do what we do. You keep an entire secret government agency running, in spite of all the nonsense and dangerous beings trying to make your life difficult. Ava, you're the director of the Time Bureau. You're a badass." He finished his speech by clinking his glass against hers.

He was convincing, she had to admit. She wondered if maybe he was right. She had kept the Time Bureau going despite everything thrown at it. She had an amazing girlfriend and, while Ava's life might honestly be mostly about her work, she did count a very small number of people, mostly the Legends, as friends. For someone who'd started as a clone destined to a life a servitude, she'd done pretty damn well for herself.

"Thank you. I think I needed this." Ava clinked her glass against Nate's in return. "How about you get us another round?"

Ava decided that a night off in the 1920s sounded just about perfect. And tomorrow she'd tell Eileen Green that she had the job. At the very least, she figured she could hold it over Gary for the foreseeable future. Maybe even guilt him into taking care of some of her backlog of emails.

She smiled as she downed the rest of her drink, waiting for Nate to return. She'd decided that their evening was just beginning.


End file.
